A Tricky Treat
One October a long, long time ago in a land far away, this conversation happened in the studio:
“What are you going to name your Halloween composition?” I asked ten-year-old Peter.
“Haunted House,” he said without missing a beat.
“Have you ever been to a haunted house?”
“Yes, two of them, and here’s the truth, Miss Amy: I had a breakdown.”
“Really?” I said, “Super scary?”
“The first haunted house was for kids and it wasn’t scary at all, but the other one . . . well, I had a breakdown. Miss Amy, there really should be something between not-scary-at-all and a breakdown.”
I’ve been thinking about this lately, and I agree with Peter completely. Actually something between not-scary-at-all and a breakdown might be the sweet spot we are longing for these days in this mad world.
But until then, we have our work to do: Show up. Fill in our practice boxes. You know, learn stuff.
To that end, pianists, this is a trick. Or a treat, depending upon how you look at it.
This tricky treat represents, I must say, a moment of brilliance on my part. We have, for the past few years, been playing scales with all kinds of rhythms. “Joy to the World” during the month of December for sure, but we’ve also been stealing the rhythm from nursery rhymes like “Pease Porridge Hot,” “Roses are Red (Violets are Blue),” and even other songs like “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” Some of these rhymes and tunes require a bit of creative fudging at the end of the scale depending on the number of octaves played, but they all work nicely. Of course, this is all an attempt to keep our brains clicking along as we go through the motions of technique practice. Switching up the rhythms provide just enough change to force us really think about notes and fingering instead of playing on autopilot.
We probably could have kept going indefinitely with our small repertoire of scale rhythms. After all, there are a lot of major and minor scales. But one inspired day, I thought, “Hmm…how would “Row Row Row Your Boat” work out?”
Really well, I must say.
In fact, as previously mentioned, I think this was a particularly brilliant idea on my part. Maybe the best idea I ever had. The kids do not agree, however.
The reason the kids are skeptical of this scale rhythm is because it is tricky. Using “Row Row” (as we have come to call it) for two-octave scales requires students to flip over the top of the second octave quite fast (You know, the “merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily” part of the song). This means that the student must REALLY know their scales. I love it. They hate it.
The rhythm of “Row Row” as it fits for a two-octave scale:
Row Row Row Your Boat
Gently down the Stream
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily Merrily
Life is like a dream SO ROW!!!!